


gonna rip it off (go back home)

by ilgaksu



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Catholicism Metaphor, Kavinsky is Kavinsky, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joseph Kavinsky can't read Latin. He can't read Latin and Ronan can't read his own body and they've both got enough blood on their hands they could mark each other up and you'd never see the red.</p><p>That's beautiful, that is.</p><p>(Part of the TRC 30s au collab 'verse with notallbees).</p>
            </blockquote>





	gonna rip it off (go back home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notallbees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notallbees/gifts).



> for the primer to this au 'verse, please see [the original post here](http://notallbees.tumblr.com/post/132953999100/notallbees-when-will-i-stop-raiding-this#notes). . i'd recommend it before reading.

 

 

He doesn't fucking get it.

*

Joseph was named for his father, named for the carpenter, and he never got to go to school. He had private tutors, of a sort, men with hollow eyes and hollow chests who smiled too wide and taught him: this is the artery in the thigh. This is the nerve ending in the knee. The easiest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. The easiest way is through an Achilles' heel. It would have made a lot more sense, that part, if they'd ever taught Joseph Latin. Maybe he'd know how to read shit, for one, like the Romany runners' prayers or the names for what you pickled in jars or the terrifying soft cruelty of Ronan Lynch's mouth. But Joseph isn't a tragic hero, not like the Lynch boys in their bizarre fucking parody of Macbeth or Gansey trying so hard to be Caesar or Adam fucking Parrish with Antinous' big sad eyes (see, he can read shit, or at least he can make people talk shit). Joseph, named for his father, named for the carpenter, is Bulgarian dirt to the bone; cut him and he cries Cyrillic. When Joseph killed his dad in the night, he wore a diamond tie pin to the funeral and smiled during the opening procession.

Joseph Kavinsky's a fucking emperor, and he's ready to watch this city burn.

*

He still doesn't fucking get it.

*

See, the thing is, Lynch wants him. They both know it, even if Lynch is strangled by his own rosary beads, the most uptight lay Joseph's ever tried to go for. Lynch Newly Senior knows it too, if the way Declan's been looking at him when he passes by with some new fish-eyed advertisement hanging off his arm is any indication. Joseph's always taken the glares as validation, but the fear in Declan is good in the way salt is good. So it's good, it's salt, and Joseph smiles wide, hollow eyes and his hollow chest, and in the dark slow blinks Joseph is thinking of Ronan's leg hooked around his hip and gasping, dragged out of him like penance, and the sharp semicircle of Joseph's teeth in Ronan's shoulder. That's beautiful, that is. That's fucking poetry. _Memento mori_ or some shit. Whatever. Joseph Kavinsky can't read Latin. He can't read Latin and Ronan can't read his own body and they've both got enough blood on their hands they could mark each other up and you'd never see the red.

That's beautiful, that is.

(Ronan hunched over in the alleyway, the slick hurt of his mouth and moving hand, the doe-wounded look in his eyes when he looked up and caught the ragged edge of Joseph's smirk.)

That's fucking poetry.

*

Spoiler: Joseph really, really fucking hates Adam Parrish.

*

Adam's got freckles and Ronan treats them like constellations instead of what they are: dirt under his skin that he'll never pick out. Gutter kid to gutter kid, man to man; Joseph's sure he knows Parrish, the oval face and oddly light eyes and the nice white name they gave him to cover up the colour of his skin. Adam's not a name, it's greasepaint, and it flakes off the longer you stare at him.

*

Adam's not a name. (Ronan says it like he says the Hail Mary. Joseph's never seen Lynch pray, but he can imagine.)

*

(Joseph spends a lot of time imagining.)

*

He wonders if you can see the dirty blood when Parrish bleeds, or if that's just the grease. He's disappointed Ronan is so typical, so predictable, so fucking new money, to see a poor boy and think the grease will make it easier.

*

_Nouveau riche_ , they call it. Joseph doesn't know Latin.

*

They think they're hiding it, but who are they fucking kidding, honestly? Sure, Lynch, he's your mechanic. Sure.

Joseph's killed someone with a spanner once; do what you can with what you have, the American Dream, all that jazz; he wonders how quickly the metal would warm in his hands now. 

Sometimes, he imagines what they might be like.

Sometimes, he even wants to.

*

"What are you doing, K?" Prokopenko says, leaning over his shoulder. Joseph elbows him so hard Prokopenko staggers back, but he doesn't whine. He never does. Turns out Joseph prefers noise. Rather than shut the Latin primer away in a drawer again, Joseph takes Prokopenko's cigarette out of his mouth and stubs it out on the open page. The hiss of the paper is satisfying, but not enough.

"Don't know yet," Joseph says, "The night's young. Go get the car," and reaches for his diamond tie pin.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] gonna rip it off (go back home)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086994) by [derivational (crookedspoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/derivational)




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